Top 9!
What better way to review the year that was than with some completely subjective lists?
The 9 comics I enjoyed most in 2009:
MODOK: Reign Delay - Dark Reign is the latest giant Marvel crossover, centred on the idea of Norman Osborn for some reason becoming the head of SHIELD and staffing it full of super-villians. There's some hilarious stuff here - MODOK wants to start working for evilSHIELD, and Osborn decides to send him one "a secret mission" to Erie, Pennsylvania rather than actually deal with him. Coincidentally, Erie is MODOK's hometown, and it's time for his high school reunion! The end result is part , part Grosse Point Blank, and all Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing.
Greek Street - I've had a lifelong fascination with Greek mythology and literature, so Greek Street's premise, taking those stories and placing them within an urban environment, was immediately interesting to me. Add in some crime fiction elements and a coating of grime, and you get a completely uncensored, brutal retelling of Greek myth. We are all victims of the fates, and the only question is when they will come calling for us; if they come calling on Greek Street, though, they're as likely to do it as the stripper you just got a lapdance from as they are any other old maidens.
Superman: World of New Krypton - One of the complaints people tend to have about Superman is that there's nowhere new to go with the character - that every possible Superman story has been told. DC doesn't always do a lot to counter that (how many times has his origin story been re-told, for example?), but then they come along with something like this. There's a Kryptonian city named Kandor, which years ago was shrunk down by Braniac and put inside a bottle, where the inhabitants go around in their little tiny-bottled lives. The concept of this series is that Kandor gets let out of the bottle, its inhabitants grow back to human size, and then they decide to found a "New Krypton" in orbit around our sun. Superman goes with them, due to family connections, goes with them. A lot of the most interesting Superman stories have dealt with Clark trying to balance his human childhood with his Kryptonian heritage. This one does it by placing him in an environment where everyone's got the same set of powers he does, which means he can quite worrying about being super, and just focus on being a man. He's still an outsider, though, but this time because he's too human, rather than not being human enough.
Fables - Fables was in an interesting position at the start of the year. The series is one of Vertigo's most popular, and has been around for 6 years, but it also just wrapped up the story that had been driving it throughout those 6 years (the war against the Adversary). A lot of the time solving the central mystery of a story kills any interest in it, but the creators of Fables avoided that by taking a page from the Joss Whedon playbook, and showing the characters that sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you is getting exactly what you want.
The Unwritten - Tom Taylor's got a problem. Well, he has several. His first problem is that his father effectively stole his childhood and turned it into a series of fantasy novels starring a character named Tommy Taylor. Then his father disappeared. What's worst, though, is that evidence comes forward that Tom isn't who he thinks he is - and that it's possible that he is nothing more than the fiction of his father, given flesh. Literary in only the way that a Vertigo title could get away with, and featuring the same creative team behind Vertigo's Lucifer series, this should become another one of those classic, long-running Vertigo series.
Chew - You read enough superhero stories and you get the feeling that every type of power's been covered. Then you come across someone like Tony Chu, the main character of this title, who's a cibopath, which is kind of like being a psychic, only you're limited to getting psychic impressions of things you've eaten. Tony works for the USDA, and ends up investigating crimes for them. You'd think psychic powers would make for easy detective work, but when you have to eat the evidence (including, at certain points, frozen dog and a human finger), nothing comes easy. Dark, funny, at times grotesque, there are a dozen reasons why this comic shouldn't work, but it DOES.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe - Poor Scott Pilgrim. Just when he thought he was starting to get it together, he comes up against another two of his girlfriends Evil Ex-Boyfriends (twins, this time!), reaches a crossroads of sorts with said girlfriend, and continues to figure out what being a grown-up is all about. If you know the series, you have a general feel for the writing style; what's great to watch in this volume, though, is how much Brian Lee O'Malley is progressing as an artistic storyteller - he was good when he started, but there's a few panels here that are just amazing. Also, without getting too spoilery, this book has one of the best justifications for a shiny foil cover that I've ever seen in a comic book.
Detective Comics - To specify, Detective Comics starting with issue 854. Batman is dead(ish), so Detective Comics gets turned over to Batwoman, Katherine Kane, as she tries to keep the mean streets of Gotham safe. Kane and her supporting cast are realistic, three-dimensional characters who struggle against the darkness in a way that's classically Batman, but without a lot of the baggage that Bruce Wayne has become saddled with. Beyond the strong story, though, the art in this book is just fantabulous! JH Williams manages to switch art styles not only from scene to scene, but from panel to panel at times, picking whatever looks like it will fit the scene he's depicting. Beautiful work.
Irredeemable - Mark Waid returns to superhero comics in this twist on the Superman myth. The Plutonian, Earth's greatest hero, has gone rogue, and no one is quite exactly sure why. Oh, people have their theories. Was it because of his affair with another hero? Because he could hear the ingratitude of everyone he saved, or failed to save? Was it simply a case of power corrupting? Regarless, he's now laying waste to cities and murdering his former teammates, and they have to find a way to stop him. This was one of the freshest, most interesting takes on the superhero genre I've seen in recent years.
The 9 comics I enjoyed most in 2009:
MODOK: Reign Delay - Dark Reign is the latest giant Marvel crossover, centred on the idea of Norman Osborn for some reason becoming the head of SHIELD and staffing it full of super-villians. There's some hilarious stuff here - MODOK wants to start working for evilSHIELD, and Osborn decides to send him one "a secret mission" to Erie, Pennsylvania rather than actually deal with him. Coincidentally, Erie is MODOK's hometown, and it's time for his high school reunion! The end result is part , part Grosse Point Blank, and all Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing.
Greek Street - I've had a lifelong fascination with Greek mythology and literature, so Greek Street's premise, taking those stories and placing them within an urban environment, was immediately interesting to me. Add in some crime fiction elements and a coating of grime, and you get a completely uncensored, brutal retelling of Greek myth. We are all victims of the fates, and the only question is when they will come calling for us; if they come calling on Greek Street, though, they're as likely to do it as the stripper you just got a lapdance from as they are any other old maidens.
Superman: World of New Krypton - One of the complaints people tend to have about Superman is that there's nowhere new to go with the character - that every possible Superman story has been told. DC doesn't always do a lot to counter that (how many times has his origin story been re-told, for example?), but then they come along with something like this. There's a Kryptonian city named Kandor, which years ago was shrunk down by Braniac and put inside a bottle, where the inhabitants go around in their little tiny-bottled lives. The concept of this series is that Kandor gets let out of the bottle, its inhabitants grow back to human size, and then they decide to found a "New Krypton" in orbit around our sun. Superman goes with them, due to family connections, goes with them. A lot of the most interesting Superman stories have dealt with Clark trying to balance his human childhood with his Kryptonian heritage. This one does it by placing him in an environment where everyone's got the same set of powers he does, which means he can quite worrying about being super, and just focus on being a man. He's still an outsider, though, but this time because he's too human, rather than not being human enough.
Fables - Fables was in an interesting position at the start of the year. The series is one of Vertigo's most popular, and has been around for 6 years, but it also just wrapped up the story that had been driving it throughout those 6 years (the war against the Adversary). A lot of the time solving the central mystery of a story kills any interest in it, but the creators of Fables avoided that by taking a page from the Joss Whedon playbook, and showing the characters that sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you is getting exactly what you want.
The Unwritten - Tom Taylor's got a problem. Well, he has several. His first problem is that his father effectively stole his childhood and turned it into a series of fantasy novels starring a character named Tommy Taylor. Then his father disappeared. What's worst, though, is that evidence comes forward that Tom isn't who he thinks he is - and that it's possible that he is nothing more than the fiction of his father, given flesh. Literary in only the way that a Vertigo title could get away with, and featuring the same creative team behind Vertigo's Lucifer series, this should become another one of those classic, long-running Vertigo series.
Chew - You read enough superhero stories and you get the feeling that every type of power's been covered. Then you come across someone like Tony Chu, the main character of this title, who's a cibopath, which is kind of like being a psychic, only you're limited to getting psychic impressions of things you've eaten. Tony works for the USDA, and ends up investigating crimes for them. You'd think psychic powers would make for easy detective work, but when you have to eat the evidence (including, at certain points, frozen dog and a human finger), nothing comes easy. Dark, funny, at times grotesque, there are a dozen reasons why this comic shouldn't work, but it DOES.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe - Poor Scott Pilgrim. Just when he thought he was starting to get it together, he comes up against another two of his girlfriends Evil Ex-Boyfriends (twins, this time!), reaches a crossroads of sorts with said girlfriend, and continues to figure out what being a grown-up is all about. If you know the series, you have a general feel for the writing style; what's great to watch in this volume, though, is how much Brian Lee O'Malley is progressing as an artistic storyteller - he was good when he started, but there's a few panels here that are just amazing. Also, without getting too spoilery, this book has one of the best justifications for a shiny foil cover that I've ever seen in a comic book.
Detective Comics - To specify, Detective Comics starting with issue 854. Batman is dead(ish), so Detective Comics gets turned over to Batwoman, Katherine Kane, as she tries to keep the mean streets of Gotham safe. Kane and her supporting cast are realistic, three-dimensional characters who struggle against the darkness in a way that's classically Batman, but without a lot of the baggage that Bruce Wayne has become saddled with. Beyond the strong story, though, the art in this book is just fantabulous! JH Williams manages to switch art styles not only from scene to scene, but from panel to panel at times, picking whatever looks like it will fit the scene he's depicting. Beautiful work.
Irredeemable - Mark Waid returns to superhero comics in this twist on the Superman myth. The Plutonian, Earth's greatest hero, has gone rogue, and no one is quite exactly sure why. Oh, people have their theories. Was it because of his affair with another hero? Because he could hear the ingratitude of everyone he saved, or failed to save? Was it simply a case of power corrupting? Regarless, he's now laying waste to cities and murdering his former teammates, and they have to find a way to stop him. This was one of the freshest, most interesting takes on the superhero genre I've seen in recent years.